Director Ilse Varga

Threshold Institute · Staff record

Name

Director Ilse Varga

Role

State engineer who built the site; the first Director

Years

Years 1 to 20

First file

T-001 The rift

Last file

T-013 Cold room

Ilse Varga was the state engineer to whom the ministry gave the mine after a shaft crew found the rift at its bottom, with a budget that stood in no ledger (T-001). She had the containment chamber poured around the tear before anything else was built, then the sealed level dug around the chamber, and only then the buildings above (T-001). The day of the breakthrough became day 1 of the Institute's calendar and Varga its first Director, and the staff took the word threshold from her (T-001).

The Institute's first rules were hers. The first was painted on the chamber door: no one entered the rift, touched it or put any object into it without the Director's written order (T-001). When Corporal Mara Okafor brought down the first stalker in the anteroom, where the guards had stood their night watch with the work lights off to spare the generators, Varga granted both of her requests, lights at night and a second lamp for every guard, and that summer she formed the response team and gave it to Okafor (T-002). After the brute she ordered every new corridor on the sealed level dug wide enough for one (T-003).

The second rule came in year 4, after the shade took a maintenance crew of four in the unlit service tunnels, and a fifth man from the crew that went in to search for them (T-004). Varga's memorandum read: "The crews died because we had let the dark stand in our own building. From today: light everywhere." (T-004). The third came in year 9, after the mirror took the night guard Aron Mell. Varga interviewed the guard it had followed out into the yard, and from then on nothing in the cells reflected (T-007).

She was still Director when the rooms began to turn. She granted Okafor's memorandum on the dark room in full and moved the young Tomas Rehn from supplies to a survey of the building (T-008), and after the first three rooms she ordered every room on the sealed level measured once a year (T-010). Varga stepped down in year 20, after twenty years. Her successor, Director Hanne Lind, took the sealed level with its three rules and its numbered rooms (T-013).

Papers under their name

• Addendum T-002-B: note, Director I. Varga, Year 1, month 5, day 2, in T-002 Rift stalker
• Addendum T-004-B: memorandum, Director I. Varga, Year 4, month 3, day 1, in T-004 Shade
• Addendum T-007-A: interview with day guard Rune Falk, Year 9, month 3, day 14. Interviewer: Director I. Varga, in T-007 Mirror
• Addendum T-008-B: memorandum, M. Okafor to Director I. Varga, Year 11, month 5, day 8, in T-008 Dark room

In the case files

Director Ilse Varga is named in 8 case files. The last column says where in each file.

Part I: The tear

File	Found	Where named
T-001 The rift	Year 1, month 1, day 1	Discovery
T-002 Rift stalker	Year 1, month 4, day 17	Discovery, Addendum T-002-B
T-003 Rift brute	Year 2, month 9, day 3	Addendum T-003-B
T-004 Shade	Year 4, month 2, day 11	Addendum T-004-B
T-007 Mirror	Year 9, month 3, day 14	Addendum T-007-A

Part II: The rooms turn

File	Found	Where named
T-008 Dark room	Year 11, month 5, day 6	Addendum T-008-B, Addendum T-008-C
T-010 Elsewhere door	Year 14, month 11, day 3	Addendum T-010-C
T-013 Cold room	Year 18, month 12, day 5	What followed